coldrainwater wrote:I like where this is going generally. Here or elsewhere, do you (or others including but not limited to Reineke) mind elaborating on how you go about conducting your research generally and building up a base of knowledge around a given discipline? Having a good base of resources is clearly beneficial and if you have such a base and are willing to share (or have shared and can link), I'd be very interested. Since we are definitely on a language forum, and to make it specific, do you mind sharing your methods, tips, and background for going about this sort of knowledge (here language) acquisition in your preferred manner? I personally consider it relevant to the main thread title (Intentionally Minimizing Time Spent for Better Results).
You are definitely right about there being a lot of potentially wasted time using some of the sources I have read and have linked to in the posts above. The examples are indeed very silly and we can cut to the chase in an easier manner. One obvious way for me to approach my own question would be in tackling the whole gamut of resources on how to conduct research. That might work, but to keep things efficient in that regard, I should probably get a general overview from those who have been there and done that. I'd rather develop that skill presently than realize it ten years down the road. In this case, I'd also like to apply it directly to language learning.
I personally have a background in biomedical engineering and medical research - the majority of my deep dives into biology and science related fields tend to be through reading research articles, research reviews and the occasional textbook when I find that my base knowledge is missing. I used to read science journals professionally, so I tend to spend some time on Pubmed for questions around nutrition, physiology, etc...
My expertise is NOT memory or neurophysiology and my interest in the area peaked a few years ago - because I came to the conclusion that the body of knowledge tends to be insufficient to provide significant prescriptive educational guidance. We are really just learning about the layers and layers of descriptive function (functional areas, sensory biology, biochemistry, etc...). Reading Sacks, Medina, Ramachandran, Robinson and others has not particularly educated me - they are however enjoyable reads. In fact, I love those books! But I'm lucid enough to understand that a lot of this popularisation of brain function is 'carny' writing - look at the freaks we are and the oddities of (dis)function!
The split between the knowledge of function between mind and brain is so large today that my old university even has an entire department dedicated to it.
So applying principles of neurophysiological function to learning remains pretty basic - in fact, I'm going to say that sticking to a subset of Medina's list makes sense: sleep and pauses allow for consolidation, we learn for life, repetition is necessary (doesn't mean it has to SRS), exercise is good for learning, emotional attachment and multisensorial input render learning more effective (see Prof Arguilles shadowing videos where he walk and rocks about while learning, see also 'davening' or 'shokeling'), etc...
There are literally hundreds of scholarly books on Second Language Acquisition - I'm reading a few, but I have to question myself, is it well spent time? Should I not just be studying instead, because the time I spend reading about learning competes with the time I have for actual learning.
Best of luck on your Chautauqua - this inquiry of learning more for less time.
By the way, if you want to test your theory of minimising time spent - I'm sure you can design an experiment, much like weight lifting
Take 200 words - learn them, place them on cards, then randomly assign them to groups. One group you review with high frequency, one you review with lower frequency, etc... and finally a last group you only test at the end of your evaluation period. See what amount of time is optimal for you.
